Former lawmaker stays in spotlight

Tuesday

Jan 22, 2013 at 9:20 PM

BATON ROUGE — The last congressman to jointly represent both Terrebonne and Lafourche parishes on Capitol Hill has been out of office for only about three weeks and already is back in the headlines and on the airwaves.

Jeremy AlfordCapitol Correspondent

BATON ROUGE — The last congressman to jointly represent both Terrebonne and Lafourche parishes on Capitol Hill has been out of office for only about three weeks and already is back in the headlines and on the airwaves.Politically, it could be a sign of things to come for southwest Louisiana, where former Republican Rep. Jeff Landry’s base of power resides.A New Iberia attorney and businessman, Landry played armchair quarterback for KPEL, a Lafayette-based radio station, on President Barack Obama’s inauguration address Monday, calling it a “progressive speech” and a promise that the “government is going to take care of you.” Landry also had harsh words for House Speaker John Boehner, an Ohio Republican he said made bad decisions during critical times in the last term. “I think he would be gone today if there was a person we could replace him with,” Landry told the Acadiana station. The following day, Landry had a letter to the editor published in The Advocate, Baton Rouge’s daily newspaper, describing the federal National Gas Act as a “disaster for our economy.”“The legislation requires you — the taxpayer — to subsidize the natural gas transformation at the cost of more than $100 billion,” he wrote. “And it disregards the huge investments made by private companies like Sasol and Shell, who are risking billions of dollars to expand their Louisiana refineries to turn natural gas into a diesel fuel that doesn’t require the type of massive transformation of infrastructure that these politicians are proposing.”Landry said shortly before leaving office that he could likely become a familiar voice on conservative talk radio, possibly with a recurring role on the Denny Schaffer Show on WRNO in New Orleans. “I’ll do liberal radio, too, if you can find me one,” Landry said in an interview with The Courier before the new Congress was seated Jan. 3.Landry also would not rule out possible runs for district attorney out of Iberia Parish or against Sen. Mary Landrieu, a New Orleans Democrat up for reelection in 2014. After a bitterly fought campaign against Rep. Charles Boustany, R-Lafayette, Landry’s campaign only has about $66,000 left in the bank, according to the Federal Election Commission. Boustany won the newly configured 3rd Congressional District with 60 percent of the vote in a December runoff. Prior to the most recent redistricting process, which shifts political lines every 10 years based on population, Terrebonne and Lafourche parishes were both part of the 3rd District. Now, the northern halves of both parishes are in the 6th Congressional District and the southern portions are in the 1st District, represented by Reps. Bill Cassidy, R-Baton Rouge, and Steve Scalise, R-Metairie, respectively.